Customer Reviews

Holy Smoke

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dario Trengoni and his childhood pal Antonio Polsinelli meet for the first time in years and discuss what each is doing and what is happening with some of their mutual friends from growing up Italian in South Paris. Dario insists "Anto" speaks the real language, Italian better than he so he asks a favor. Anto reluctantly agrees to writes a love letter for Dario to Madame Raphaelle ironically in French.

Not long after their encounter, someone shoots Dario in the head. Tonio as he known now is stunned to learn he inherited an Italian vineyard near Naples from Dario. He also finds out that his friend was a Taxi-boy earning his money as a gigolo. Tonio tries to locate Madame Raphaelle, but that proves a bit dangerous. So instead he travels to his new property only to find the wine stinks, the vines are worse, the locals already hate him, and a religious scam is in place. With the inheritance comes the Mafia and the Vatican, two of the toughest mobs in Europe, who expect Tonio to give each of them a 100 percent tithe.

HOLY SMOKE! This tale is a terrific twisted look at crime from the perspective of a small timer who is being squeezed by organized groups who want the whole action. Tonio is fabulous as a minnow suddenly swimming with sharks. Fans will appreciate his distinction between the two outside "mobs". The story line satirizes criminal behavior (a crime is defined by the state) to include organized religion as a subcategory of crime. Tonino Benacquista provides a delightfully droll dark thriller.

Harriet Klausner

I found this book to be somehow lacking, despite the fact that it has apparently won one or more awards.

It sort of meandered along with the main character stumbling into plot connections, which perhaps reflects the Gallic and Italian flair referred to in a review clip from The Guardian.

''An iconoclastic chronicle of small-time crooks and desperate capers, with added Gallic and Italian flair. Wonderful fun.'' The Guardian

However, this stumbling just didn't have a realistic feel to it and perhaps that is why the novel leaves me with a "meh" feeling.

This was a good read. Surprisingly one of the most believable books that I have read in a long time. I recommend it for anyone who likes books that are intelligent yet still an easy read.

The funniest of all the Bitter Lemon output, a Meyer lemon of crime fiction. Murder-mystery, comedy, and satire all in one, with the satire directed equally at the deserving Vatican and Mafia. Unless you are a devout RC, a cardinal, or a capo, you have to relish the lively pokes at these more or less indistinguishable organizations, as well as the thrill of the chase.

Holy Smoke is a terrific little (200-page) mystery that works on several levels. On its surface, the book is about the amusing adventures of a man who inherits a vineyard - and a world of problems. On another level, it is about someone in search of a home - a Frenchman of Italian descent who cannot escape his roots. It is a tribute to author Tonino Benacquista that the book succeeds on both levels.

The novel opens with our hero, the Italian Frenchman Tonio Polsinelli, running into Dario, a friend from the neighborhood that Tonio left many years earlier. In fact, the reader learns that Tonio has spent his life trying to escape the old neighborhood and its Italian-immigrant residents. Tonio wants to be a "real" Frenchman and sums up his feelings on the old neighborhood in the following passage:

"God, you suburbs are depressing. You've got nothing going for you. There you are with your eyes turned towards Paris and your arse towards the countryside. You can only ever be a compromise. You're boredom incarnate" (page 53).

Tonio agrees to write a love letter to Dario's French girlfriend (because Dario's French is too poor for him to do it himself). When Dario is murdered, Tonio inherits the Italian vineyard that Dario has recently purchased. Fate, then, draws Tonio into Dario's world and back to Italy.

Of course, Italy is the last place he wants to go. Even worse, the village in which he finds himself is his family's ancestral home. Once there, all sorts of misadventures ensue; Tonio eventually runs afoul of the mafia, the Vatican, and the townspeople. (Ironically, the townspeople now consider him to be French, which perhaps sums up the immigrant's dilemma of being stuck between cultures).

Benacquista paces the story well, it never bogs down. He also interjects little bits of sardonic humor that sneak up on the reader. (Of one Italian-American gangster, Benacquista writes "He was amazed that you could get good pizza in Italy too, only not so good as at home). A subplot develops the "searching for roots" theme by tying Tonio's current search to his father's past in World War II Italy. Though the subplot meshes with the book's theme, it made things fit a little too neatly for my taste.

I am ambivalent about Holy Smoke's final chapter. Benacquista could have omitted it with no loss, but he decided to end with a literary flourish. Perhaps it's a brilliant stroke, or perhaps it's another case of a writer not knowing when to quit - I'm still not sure.

As a rule, I am skeptical of any mystery that aspires to be "more than a mystery." Most authors of such books seem to view mystery writing as "slumming" and - as a result - their books fail on both levels. Holy Smoke is a happy exception to that rule.